Perth: It is a question that many in Australia, especially in the aftermath of the first Test defeat, have been asking: how has an attack made up of Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj and Harshit Rana managed to out bowl Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc?
The obvious and succinct answer to that question is Bumrah, but it takes more than one to win a Test. It always does. That is why it is just as important to study the tactics of the Indian team. They kept it simple, yes, but there was also a science to this.
Cummins has taken 272 wickets at an average of 22.85, Hazlewood has 278 wickets at 24.58 and Starc has 361 wickets at 27.85. The Indians may not be inferior in terms of talent but a comparison on the wickets count gives an idea of the gulf of experience that exists. Bumrah is the most experienced and he has 181 wickets at 20.06. Siraj has 85 wickets at 29.67 and Rana, who made his debut at Perth, has four wickets at 29.25.
It is a mismatch and this is what most sides face in Australia. Normally touring sides struggle in Perth because of the extra bounce. It is not the old WACA ground but the place has a particular kind of soil and it takes some adjusting too.
And that is one of the reasons Sachin Tendulkar’s 114 in 1992 is still regarded as one of the best innings played by an Indian there. He was young and had never experienced such conditions before but he just came out and played his guts out.
Bowling adjustments
To many in the India, the big adjustment is just for the batter. After all, isn’t it just easier for the pacers? It is but when you have spent your life bowling on dust bowls, your natural length is not exactly what is needed to find success in Perth.
You get a bit too excited by the bounce and bang it in a bit too short or try and bowl too quickly. Often, the Australian batters feast on it.
Then there is the case of the Kookaburra ball, with the seam not being as pronounced as the SG balls in India. The new ball is fine but once it gets older and softer, batting becomes easier. So, in their first few days in Perth, the thing that the bowlers paid most attention to was their length.
India has never been a country for fast bowlers or so we were told but how quickly has the story changed. Earlier, the bowlers would take much longer to adjust but with data and video technology to help them, it is much easier to get the point across.
“Obviously bowlers do a lot more research, and are data-driven as well because that’s how the game is headed,” Bumrah had said before the game.
And that was the thing that made the eventual difference. Studying and understanding what needed to be done was vital. The last time India played at Perth in 2018, the wicket was quicker but it gave Bumrah a clue of what needed to be done on this wicket.
Length matters
So, while the Aussies found success in the first innings, India did even better by pitching that ball that little bit further up.
Australia bowled quicker — 20.3 percent of their deliveries were about 140 kph as compared to 9.7 by the Indians. They even got more swing (0.51° vs 0.48°) and seam (0.67° vs 0.66°), though not by much but the difference was what they did with the movement.
And this is where India’s seamers took the lead. By pitching it further up, at a good length, 46.3 percent of the time as compared to Australia’s 40.9, the visitors got more edges, induced more false shots and bowled deliveries that would have hit the stumps 13.2 percent of the time as compared to just 8.1 by the Aussies.
One has to also factor in that the Aussie bowlers are much taller than their Indian counterparts. Cummins is 1.92m tall, Hazlewood is 1.96m and Starc is 1.97m. Bumrah and Siraj come in at 1.78m while Rana is 1.9m tall. So, to hit the stumps, the Aussies would have had to pitch it even further up.
Since January 2018, India have managed to get more out of the conditions better than perhaps what the Aussies have. Bumrah is the outlier with 40 wickets at just 18.80. But Siraj has 18 wickets at 25.27 and Mohammed Shami has 16 wickets at 28.75. If you go down the list, Ishant Sharma (11 wkts at 23.81) makes an appearance as well. Of the top six visiting bowlers in Australia since 2018, three are Indians.
If you have a great player at the peak of his powers, and Bumrah is definitely there, you make the most of it. But what has truly helped India is the manner in which the lessons learned have been handed down to the next generation.
The day-night Test at Adelaide might be a different ball game and the great Australian bowling attack might take things up a gear, but India’s bowlers have shown that they certainly won’t be overawed by whatever the conditions may throw at them.
